


I'm Never Gonna Let Anything Happen To You

by TenToo



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Hershel Lives, TWD AU, Woodbury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5140394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenToo/pseuds/TenToo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philip's (the Governor) life is spared after the attack on the prison, thanks to Hershel, who he in turn spared. With the prison overrun, they take Woodbury back from the walkers. With Philip prisoner, many people in the group feel uneasy, all except the Chamblers. Most want to kill him. Will Philip survive his captivity? Can they live happily like Hershel wanted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

The smoke rose from the towers, thick and black. The air was filled with the growls of the biters, growing louder as more approached the prison from the noise of gunfire. Philip Blake could barely see out of his swollen eye, the other one lost to him months ago. But, what he could make out was the grimy, bloody former-sheriff standing over him, gun in hand. _So this is how I die,_ he thought. It wasn’t how he thought he would go, not since this whole thing started. 

In the beginning, he had thought he would die protecting his daughter. She had been his number one priority but, when he lost her, he learned that _he_ was his only priority. It was the sole thing driving him to do all that he did. He needed to survive. But now, beaten and broken in the dying grass, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to survive. All that effort, wasted. _I should have died with Penny_ , he thought as he heard the click of a safety being released. 

“Rick, don’t!” It was the quiet drawl of Hershel Greene, that much he could tell. His head was swimming, he felt like he was going to pass out but he fought the urge. _Glad I didn’t chop your head off._  

“Don’t?” Rick spat. He swept his arm over the carnage and rubble, the broken bodies and crushed fences. “Look what he’s done. Remember what he’s done in the past. He almost strangled me. He almost killed you!”

“ _For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved._ ” Hershel quoted. _I’m to be saved by a faith I lost long ago._ “No one’s truly lost, Rick. Let’s take him with us, take him prisoner. He’s still a person.”

“A poor excuse if I ever saw one.” Michonne said cruelly. She had her katana pointed at Philip’s throat. 

“ _Michonne,_ ” The old man warned. “Tie him…”

The soft voice of the crippled man was cut off by the roar of an engine. Philip turned to see a Woodbury bus barreling toward them, a motorbike following in its cloud of dust. They both stopped and a dirty man and girl ran toward them from the bike: Daryl and Tara. Tara walked past Rick, Michonne, and Hershel and smacked Philip so hard across the face he actually saw stars — he always thought that was just a saying.

“How could you? This was a slaughter!” She screamed, drawing the attention of more biters to them. 

“I…” He began.

“Doesn’t matter. Should’ve never agreed to this.” Tara said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I have to find my sister.”

Tyreese jumped off the bus and said, “We gotta go. We’re about to be overrun.”

Rick took a moment then looked down at Philip still lying on the ground, now rubbing his jaw from Tara’s slap. He looked at Tyreese and said, “Help me with him.”

“What?”

“I said, help me with him.” Rick repeated. 

“We’re taking the Governor?” He asked, staring at the man he knew to be insane. Rick nodded. Shaking his head in disbelief, Tyreese said, “It’s your call, boss.” Rick and Tyreese each grabbed Philip by an arm and hauled him to his feet. He was unsteady but managed to stand. They pulled him toward the bus, half dragging him because he wasn’t cooperating. 

Screams came from below, where the fences used to be. Philip whipped his head and nearly passed out from the rush that came over him. He knew those screams. He took off, running as best he could, Tara sprinting past him toward her helpless family. A piercing pain in his leg caused him to tumble to the ground. He hadn’t heard the shot with the racket the biters were making, but when he looked down, he saw the blood pouring out of a wound in his thigh. The bullet had gone through, missing the bone. _The fucker shot me._ He looked back and saw a light curl of white smoke coming from the barrel of Rick’s gun, disappearing in the wind. The sheriff and his faithful samurai walked toward him, weapons of choice out and ready for use. 

“Hey, easy now.” Philip said, hands raising in surrender. He stared at Lilly and Meghan, slowly being surrounded by biters, Tara nearly to them. “Do what you want with me. Put a bullet in my brain. But, please, save them.”

Michonne looked at him oddly, her eyebrows furrowing together. 

“Go. Save them. He ain’t goin’ anywhere without ‘em.” Hershel said, staring curiously at Philip. 

“Get him on the bus.” Rick barked as he and Michonne ran toward the women. 

Philip watched helplessly as Tara and Lilly shot at the biters, emptying all they had while Meghan clung to Lilly’s waist, burying her face in her mother’s shirt. He felt hands under his armpits and he was pulled to his feet again, pain in his leg causing black spots to form on the outskirts of his vision. As he was dragged to the bus by Daryl and Tyreese, the last thing he saw before blacking out was Rick and Michonne reaching his family. 

* * *

The jostling of the old bus woke him. It had never been in great shape and couldn’t go over 30 mph. He could hear arguing but what really drew his attention was the hand on his face and the other on his chest. He could barely open his eye, it was so swollen he really shouldn’t be trying but, he had to know. He opened it a fraction of an inch but, it was enough.

Kneeling in the space between the seat he was laying on and the one in front of his was Lilly Chambler. She was blotting his face with a wet cloth and gripping his shirt. He didn’t know how long he had been out but it was dark outside the dusty window now. He watched as Lilly cleaned the blood from his face. He could see fresh tears on her face as she did it and the hand on his chest gripped his shirt tighter. To ease her agony, he whispered her name. A simple thing, he thought, but her reaction was overwhelming. 

“Brian?” She whispered back. He gave her a slight nod of the head, all he could muster as everything pained him. She launched herself on him and sobbed against his chest. He tried to wrap an arm around her waist but found his hands bound with rope. “You were barely breathing, I thought you were going to die.”

The arguing on the bus had ceased and a silence fell over the group, thick and suffocating. Meghan had appeared over her mother’s shoulder. She had been crying too but, as she stared at Philip, a small smile spread across her face. She lifted up the white king from their chess set, the one with the drawn-on eyepatch. Philip didn’t fight the smile as he stared at her. She shuffled forward, trying to hand him the white king but he shook his head. He said, “It’s yours, pumpkin.” She nodded and went to sit with Tara in the seat behind his.

A voice he didn’t recognize said from the back of the bus, “Shit, he’s really alive. Thought you would’ve finished the job, Rick.”

“Hershel stopped me.” His Southern drawl rising through the air, wafting toward Philip in one of the front seats. The sheriff spoke calmly though he knew that the subject for Rick was a sore one. Philip knew that Rick had wished the bullet he had put in him had gone some place else. He was starting to think that the sheriff was becoming more like him, more sadistic, more bloodthirsty. He liked that. 

They ignored him again for a while and he watched as Lilly checked on his bullet wound. She had ripped away the rest of the pant leg and bandaged up the holes in his flesh. He almost forgot that she had been a nurse before this all started, he was grateful for it now. As he watched her, he said a soft, “Thank you.”

She looked at him and asked, “For what?”

“For everything you’ve done.”

She seemed to be studying him for a moment then she shuffled toward him on her knees and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was light, their lips barely touching but, it was all he needed. Anything more and his face would have erupted in pain and he would have passed out again. Lilly pulled away and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She ran her hand through his hair before standing up and making her way around the seat to where her daughter and sister were.

Alone, Philip listened to the conversation the prison group was having. 

“We need some place safe. We can’t keep driving around.” Hershel said calmly. Always the voice of reason, the old man was. Philip found is almost admirable.

“But where?” Who was that? Sasha, maybe? “Everywhere is overrun with walkers and what are the chances of us finding somewhere in the middle of the night that’s safe and secure?”

Several voices started talking over each other at the same time, blood boiling, anger rising. They were turning on each other. Philip almost didn’t speak up, but he didn’t want to be kept prisoner on a bus for the rest of his life — that was no life at all. “Woodbury.” His voice was a croak and only the Chamblers heard him.

“What was that, Brian?” Tara asked. 

Louder, in a commanding voice that people would have expected out of a man called ‘the Governor,’ Philip repeated, “ _Woodbury_.” He managed to sit up in his seat, despite not having use of his hands, and leaned against the window. He saw that he had the attention of everyone on the bus and he added, “Fix the gate. It’ll be safe, like it was.”

* * *

Everyone had huddled around him. He felt weak again, he could barely keep his eye open but he forced it to remain so — he wasn’t about to let them have even more of an upper-hand on him than they already did. Lilly had returned to his side, this time standing next to him as if she were ready to pounce on anyone who dare try to hurt him. 

The bus had been stopped and Daryl had joined them. He was standing next to Rick, who was directly in front of Philip, Hershel to his right. Daryl was the first to speak.

“Woodbury, you say it’s safe?”

“Last I was there, it was.”

“Which was when?” Rick asked with a patronizing tone. 

“Months ago.” Philip replied. In truth, it was six or seven months ago, when Martinez and Shumpert left him after he massacred his people. He had returned to burn it all down but couldn’t. Instead, he had burned out the room he had kept Penny in — that was the true reason he wanted to destroy the place anyway. He needed it gone, all remnants of her to be destroyed with the fire. He had dowsed the flames with water to keep it from spreading to what was his apartment. The shared wall had been damaged by the fire but only slightly, barely noticeable. He had locked the door with a padlock and tossed the key into the woods miles away when he left the following morning. 

Daryl brought him out of his thoughts as he said, “We’re supposed to just go on his word? What if it’s a trap?”

“Trap?” Philip said, his usual baritone weak. “I don’t have any more people for there to be a trap.”

Hershel was whispering to Rick; Philip could barely make it out but he heard, “…send some people ahead, scout it out.”

Rick was nodding and he said, “It’s not a bad idea.”

Louder, so everyone could hear, Hershel said, “Woodbury could be safe. It would feel more like a home.” 

To Philip, Rick asked, “Walkers inside?”

He nodded. 

“Why?” Maggie asked from several rows back.

“Destroyed the fence.” Philip replied simply, as if that answered the question and any other ones.

“Why’d you do a dumbass thing like that?” Daryl spat.

“I was mad.” Philip replied coldly. The tension in the room had reached insurmountable high and he could see Michonne reaching behind her for her katana. 

“Everyone calm down.” Hershel said. _Forever my savior,_ Philip thought. The old man continued, “Now we need volunteers to go check out Woodbury. It’s not too far up the road.”

“I’ll go.” Carl Grimes said from the back, his voice barely through puberty.

“Maybe someone who would have been old enough to vote back when society existed.” Daryl said. He turned to Hershel and said, “Count me in.”

“Me too.” Michonne said, her cold eyes still on Philip. 

“Two’s enough. We’ll go on the bike.” Daryl said, motioning for Michonne to follow him. “Meet us at GA-16, just up the road.”

They disappeared through the doors. 

* * *

The sound of the motorbike returning woke him from his slumber; he didn’t know when he had fallen asleep but the bus was still parked, although the scenery outside was different, the trees closer together. He could see faint traces of morning light out the window, peeking through the canopy, dawn was approaching. He heard the doors of the bus creak open and the engine of the bike cut off. The bus rocked as someone exited it. It was Rick, he knew it was Rick. 

“How many walkers?” The sheriff asked, his voice faint, muffled by the bus’ walls and windows. 

“About fifty. We can take them.” Daryl said in his usual bark. 

“And the gate?”

“Smashed to bits, like he said. There’s some lumber nearby though, we should be able to make a new one.” Michonne said. 

“Found some chicks living there, seemed harmless enough. They passed the test.” He heard Daryl say. Philip wondered who the “chicks” were — he had killed damn near everyone who used to live there. He also wondered about the “test.” Did people have to pass some rigorous one to join Rick’s band of assholes?

“Where’re the girls now?” Rick asked, his voice growing louder as he approached the bus again. 

“Still in their apartment. They’ve been holed up there for some time it seems.” Michonne answered. “We told them we’d be back with our group.”

He heard the bike roar to life again and take off down the road. Michonne and Rick climbed the steps onto the bus and to Tyreese, Rick said, “Let’s go home.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

“I could be more of a help out there.” Philip said, his deep baritone breaking through the sobs of the children. Lizzie, Mika, Luke, Molly, and Judith were in the back of the bus with Beth. For some reason, Jeanette had thought to introduce Lilly and him to all of them — like he really cared what they were all called.

The children were all crying for the people who had yet to return. It had been maybe an hour since the others had left the bus to clear Woodbury. The bus had been parked across the busted gate to block any new biters from getting into the town, as if they couldn’t just crawl under. 

“Shut up, will ya…” Glenn began, drowning out anything else he might have said with a fit of coughs. 

Philip turned away from the others, even Lilly and Meghan who still sat in the seat behind his rather than in the back with the kids, Hershel, Beth, and Jeanette. He could hear the garbled moaning of the dead outside the bus and peeked out the window, rubbing his rope-tied hands over the dust to make a clear hole. Biters were lining up outside of Woodbury, against the bus. If they didn’t do something, they could all stack up and the bus could flip if there were enough of them.

“We might have a problem.” Philip began and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. The children in the back, despite not knowing what the problem was, were sent into a panicked frenzy. He heard Jeanette try to calm them, probably afraid their frail little hearts couldn’t take it. 

“Dammit,” Glenn whispered, anger flashing across his face. He pushed himself out of the driver’s seat and, with the butt of his pistol, he smacked Philip across the face. “I thought I told you to shut up.”

Philip let out a breathy laugh, feeling the blood flow freely from the split on his lip. Behind him, Lilly lashed out, “What the hell was that?”

“It’s quite all right, darlin’,” Philip said, a grin pulling at his split lip. “Glenn just didn’t think to look at what I saw before abusing me, that’s all.”

“After what you did to Maggie…” Glenn started, his usually calm voice laced with malice, but the Governor kicked at his knee hard.

“ _Look._ ” He snapped. Glenn tore his eyes away from Philip’s cold one and stared out the clear hole in the window. 

“Shit.” 

“Yeah, 'shit.' Now, what are you gonna do about all those biters, all alone?” Philip asked. “Cut me loose and I’ll help you.”

“So you can bury a knife in my skull? No thanks. I’ll take my chances.” Glenn said stubbornly. He stalked off, grabbing a larger gun from the seat in front of the door before opening it and rushing out. Through the windshield, Philip watched Glenn climb onto the hood of the bus and scurry up the glass onto the roof. He could hear him walking around and the growls of the biters intensified. 

“Why do you antagonize him?” Lilly asked, peeking over the back of the seat at him. 

“Hmm?” He wasn’t paying much attention to her. He was staring out the window, watching the biters fall with each shot of the gun he heard. The boy was a good shot, it’s a shame he almost took one of his hands.

After closing the bus’ doors, Lilly sat next to him. Her light eyes were on him, he could feel it but he didn’t want to meet them. She finally grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. He glared back coldly. She released him, a momentary flash of fear crossing her face. She looked away, saying to the seat in front of them, “I should do something about that lip.”

“It’s fine.” 

Lilly sighed and he frowned. Why was he hurting her? She was one of the few people he actually care about. He could count those on one hand, he didn’t even need the whole hand: Lilly, Meghan, Tara. That was it. And Tara wasn’t too fond of him at the moment. 

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly. She turned to look at him. “You can clean the lip if you want.”

She nodded and grabbed some things from her bag in the seat behind them. He watched her pour some antiseptic on a piece of cloth before she dabbed it on the wound; he flinched away from the sting. She laughed quietly at his response, “Sorry.”

He smiled, splitting the lip further. She attempted it again and placed her hand on the back of his neck, holding him in place this time. It stung like a bitch but he sucked it up because it made her feel like she was doing something worthwhile. When she finished, she lay her head on his shoulder. He leaned his head against the back of the seat and closed his eye. 

Shouting outside caused him to open his eye again. Lilly sat up again and Meghan came around the seat to tug on her mother’s shirt. She kept mumbling, “There’s someone outside.”

“There’s a lot of someones outside, pumpkin.” Philip told her, wishing that he could comfort her in some way, hug her even. 

“No, Brian. There’s a lady outside. She’s alive.” Meghan insisted, now tugging on his sleeve for some reason. He looked at her for a moment before turning to stare out the window. She was right, of course. A woman wearing a poncho covered in biter innards was walking slowly toward them. She had short gray hair and a large rifle slung over her shoulder. He noticed that the shooting from the roof had ceased. He saw her lips moving and could hear a heavily muffled conversation; they were speaking quietly, not wishing to attract the attention of more biters. 

Glenn moved across the roof and he appeared sliding down the windshield. Philip watched as he crouched down on the hood and grasped the hands of the woman in the poncho. 

“What’s he doing?” Lilly asked, perking up as she watched him.

Philip replied, watching Glenn hoist her up onto the hood, “She’s one of them. Used to be in their group.” He continued to watch curiously as the woman’s feet made contact with the bus’ hood. She handed her rifle to Glenn then stripped off the poncho, tossing it back toward the fully dead biters.Glenn pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.

“Is that…?” A voice from the back asked; Beth, he presumed.

Her father replied, delighted, “It is.”

Philip sat silently, watching as Glenn motioned for the woman to follow him. He came up the steps alone and said, “C’mon, it’s clear.” His eyes met Philip’s and hatred instantly settled in them. Lilly abandoned Philip to grab her things and Meghan. Glenn came and grabbed Philip’s arm roughly, pulling him to his feet with surprising strength. 

_“Glenn,”_ Hershel warned from the back.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Glenn said as he dragged the Governor down the steps. 

The sunlight was blinding after the dim and dusty light of the bus. Philip was almost thankful for his swollen eye and the fact that he could only open it a centimeter or so. Glenn pulled him along and the newcomer asked, “Why’s he still alive?”

As he past her, Glenn said, “Ask Hershel.”

The others were coming back to them now, looking shabby but still intact. They all survived, that was a shame. Daryl dropped his crossbow and ran toward them, overwhelmed with emotion. Philip had a hard time understanding why people felt things like this, just like he had a hard time understanding Lilly’s affection for him. He was familiar with sudden outbursts of other emotions, like rage and hate, but he had never experienced a sudden need to show someone else that he cared. Not in a long time. 

_That’s a lie._ He’d done it recently with Meghan, when he saved her from the biters in the pit when it was just her, him, and three of them trying to tear their flesh off and devour them. He still remembered those words he spoke to her, it was the one promise he had made recently that he intended to keep, even if it killed him. _I will never let anything happen to you._ He had meant it with all of his heart. 

Now, watching Daryl embrace the woman with the short gray hair, Philip wished he felt something like that. Yes, he cared for Lilly but, did he truly love her? Did he even remember what love was? 

“Governor?” He turned his head from the embracing pair and looked at the person who spoke to him. It was like seeing a ghost — he had honestly thought the two had been killed by biters. He hadn’t seen them when he returned to burn this place down seven months ago. 

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eye.” Philip joked. 

“You know him?” Glenn asked.

“Of course they do.” Rick said, walking toward Philip. He grabbed him and began to drag him away from Rowan and Dr. Stevens. “They lived here when he ran the place.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?” Glenn asked, walking toward them as Philip was led away.

“We had food, power from the panels; why would we leave?” Dr. Stevens answered. 

Rick was dragging him away, toward the back buildings where he had kept Andrea. Philip just laughed his breathy laugh and said, “So what’s the plan, sheriff? Leave me back here to die? Torture me? Huh?”

“More of the second than the first. Maybe I’ll humiliate you like you did Maggie.” Rick said harshly. “Maybe I’ll leave you for walker food like you did Glenn and Andrea. Who knows.”

“You don’t have the stomach for it. You’re weak.” Philip said dryly. 

He could hear footfalls on the asphalt behind them and turned his head slightly to peer back. 

“Where are you taking Brian?” It was Meghan; she was running her hardest to catch them. Philip stopped in his tracks, forcing Rick to do the same — Philip was larger and stronger. 

He turned to Meghan, who stopped a few feet from him. He crouched down and said in a quiet voice, “It’s okay, pumpkin. Go back to your mom and Tara. I’m sure Mr. Grimes will let you visit.”

Meghan looked at Rick and asked, “Promise?”

Rick took a moment and said, “Promise.”

“Pinky promise?” Meghan asked, folding out her pinky to Rick. 

“Ahh…yeah.” Rick pinky promised with Meghan. 

The little girl smiled at Rick before launching herself against the Governor. He wished he could wrap his arms around her and pulled at the rope holding his wrists together but it was useless. He rest his head against her neck as she squeezed him. Meghan released him and he said, “Run off now, pumpkin.”

She did just that and Philip watched her for a moment before he stood up to his full height. He turned back to Rick and said, “Let’s get on with it then.”

The other man was staring at him like he had grown back his eye. After a moment, he pulled Philip by the arm toward the building. He led him through the door, down the hallway, and, notthrough the door he had kept Andrea behind, but the one next to it. The chains were still there, the ones he had intended to hoist Michonne up by. 

“This is more than comfortable for you.” Rick said, shoving Philip toward the chains. He grabbed one of them and made quick work of chaining the Governor up. Philip didn’t fight, he didn’t have any weapons. If he escaped, he knew that he would be shot the second he made it outside. Even if he went over the back fence, he wouldn’t leave without Meghan, Lilly, and Tara. There was no way he would abandon them.

“Just know, if you hurt my family, you’ll wish you were dead.” Philip said, his voice was cold enough to send a chill up Rick’s spine.

“We don’t hurt people if we don’t have to. And we would never hurt a child.”

Philip laughed. “Your son would. Killed one of my soldiers, just a kid himself.”

Rick’s eyes flashed with anger as he walked over and socked Philip in the stomach. He didn’t make a sound, just stared at the man. A sock to the jaw was his parting gift.

As he walked out, Philip called, “You’ll have to do better than that.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

It was over two days before anyone came into his “cell.” He was dozing off, on his way to dehydration and his stomach rumbling with hunger, when he heard the door leading outside open then the footsteps in the hallway. His eye opened as much as it could, he was on red-alert. He could hear the jangling of keys and the click of a padlock being opened.

_They fear me enough to lock me up further?_ He thought with a smile on his face. 

The door opened and the last person he wanted to see walked in. Her katana was nowhere in sight but she was wearing thin, black boxing gloves used for training; the kind with no fingers and pads over the knuckles to absorb blows. 

“They told me I wasn’t allowed to kill you.” Her shoes made light taps as she crossed the floor toward him, he could see that the soles were heavy and would hurt if she chose to kick him. Michonne was making sure that her gloves were nice and tight over her hands. She continued, “They didn’t say anything about not damaging you.”

Philip didn't say a word, just stared at her. He wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction. No matter how much she hurt him or what she did to him, he wouldn’t engage with her. 

Michonne touched the chains and said, “So this is where you planned to torture me?” She grabbed Philip by the hair and jerked his head back, causing pain to shoot down his spine and a dizzy feeling to cloud his head. But his face remained an expressionless mask. She said, “Were you going to chain me up? Beat me? _Rape me_?” She waited a second to see if anything changed in him after the last part of her questioning but he didn’t flinch away from it. 

He was, however, angered that she would even ask if he was planning to rape her. Of course he wasn’t. He only sought revenge. An eye for an eye, quite literally. Not only had she taken his eye but she had killed his little girl for good. Penny was all he had left and she had taken her from him. 

“Not gonna talk to me, huh?” She had been circling him during their silence, watching any move he made.

The way the chains were set up was for the ultimate discomfort of the person hooked up to them. His arms were stretched out, raised high and pulled away from him. He was kneeling because he could neither stand nor sit, the height his arms were and how far they were stretched didn’t allow for either. He couldn’t move much and everything hurt. He had lost feeling in his arms after a few hours and they just hung there, dead to him. He didn’t let it show how much it hurt him because he didn’t know if they were watching. But it hurt, it hurt more than anything had hurt him physically before. More than losing his eye, more than getting shot — though that pain was still fresh. 

Michonne stood in front of him now, making him focus on her every move now. “That’s okay. We can talk in other ways.” 

She got close enough for him to smell her sweat and she cracked her knuckles, he assumed to scare him. Nothing she could do would frighten him. And she didn’t have the stomach to do what would actually hurt him. Like kill his entire family. 

She didn’t speak again but instead punched him square in the jaw. It hurt but he would never admit it to anyone. She reared her arm back again and punched him twice more. He could feel the blood trickling down his chin then his neck. Surely she had something outside of her gloves, it certainly felt like it — something to scrape along his skin to tear it as her fist made contact. He didn’t know what would do that but it was something that he would do; he would want his victim to suffer. 

Her foot was the next thing to make contact with him. It connected with his ribs and she repeatedly kicked him until she was short of breath. She had to lean against the wall, staring hard at him. Philip hurt all over but he had yet to let a sound escape his lips. Michonne wasn’t going to hear anything from him. She had already seen him cry; he had let her see more than most people did and it wouldn’t happen again. Philip breathed slowly in through his nose and out his mouth to control the cries of pain he wanted to release. He kept his cold eye on hers, channelling all of his pain and anger on her. 

After a few minutes of labored breathing, Michonne returned to him. She grabbed his face and put her finger to the cut on it, expecting him to wince. He didn’t. The laugh she released was flat, unemotional. “You’re really not going to say anything, are you?”

Philip just stared at her. 

Michonne smiled, it was one he recognized because he himself usually wore one similar. It was one that didn’t travel to the eyes, one that was meaningless, hollow. “Just wait until the next one comes in. He’s not as friendly.”

With that, Michonne left him alone.

* * *

The rest of the day was a blur for Philip. From the countless fists and feet, he didn’t even know how he was alive. After the third person (was it Daryl or Glenn?), he had passed out. He woke sometime later to someone smacking his face lightly. He jerked his head and felt all of the pain rush back to him. 

“You got worked over good.” It was Hershel. _I’ll be forever indebted to this old man._ Hershel was pressing on certain spots of Philip’s face, he winced but otherwise didn’t let it show that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. Hershel reached into the bag he had brought and pulled out a syringe. He tapped it before reaching for Philip’s arm. He made quick work of putting a tourniquet around the spot just above his elbow before he grabbed the syringe. 

Before the tip of the needle penetrated his skin, Philip remembered that he at least had a say in this part of his life. “What’s in that?”

“Pain killer, strong one at that.”

“No.”

“No?” The old man was surprised. “Your injuries, I need to heal them. It’ll hurt.”

“Let it.”

Hershel looked at him curiously for several moments before he set down the syringe and released the tourniquet. He pulled gauze and splints out of the bag, ointments for the cuts. Philip vaguely remembered his arm breaking earlier when Daryl was in the room; Glenn had done the real work though, the bowman had just finished the job. He had several broken ribs too.

Philip’s eyes glazed over and he retreated into his mind as the veterinarian worked on his wounds. He thought of his family — his first family. His wife, Sarah, his daughter, Penny, even their dog, Meadow. He remembered when they had found the poor beast, long before any of this broke out. Penny was just a little girl, maybe four or five, and she had dragged him out to a field near their house with some ludicrous notion about chasing butterflies. He obliged of course, anything to make his little girl happy. 

Penny had been running through the tall blades of grass when he had heard it. It was a sound so unnatural that he hadn’t thought that a living creature could have produced it. He took off sprinting, following the source of the noise. The dog had been among a flattened patch of grass. It was likely it had been hit by an ATV or something similar, tracks led away from the poor beast. It was bleeding badly and Philip wondered if it would be more humane just to put it out of its misery. But Penny had come running to him and the dog. 

_“Daddy, if he okay?”_ She looked so heartbroken as she stared at the animal wheezing for air that he knew that he had to save it.

_“It’s a she, pumpkin, and she will be.”_ Philip spoke with such conviction that he almost believed it himself. He had scooped the beast into his arms and driven her to the local veterinarian. By some miracle, she survived; they had named her Meadow in honor of where they found her. 

Penny and her were attached at the hip all of the dog’s life. She would sit at the door, waiting for Penny to get home from school and be ecstatic when she did. When Meadow died of organ failure three months after Penny’s mom died, she didn’t know what to do with herself. The young girl stopped talking to everyone, even Philip, the only person she had left. He eventually got her to start again, but she was never the same emotionally. Then the shit hit the fan and she was forever changed. 

“All set, Governor.” Hershel said, pushing himself to his feet.

“Don’t call me that.” His voice was so quiet it caused Hershel to pause as he packed up his medical supplies. 

“Why not?” He wasn’t skeptical, like Rick would have been, he was genuinely curious.

“I’m not him anymore.”

Hershel looked at him for several moments. He seemed to be reading Philip like he would a book. Philip was more complex than anything by Faulkner, Joyce, and Rand _,_ but Hershel was trying his best. He was written in a language that Hershel didn’t understand, but he wanted to for some reason.

Finally, the farmer said, “No, I don’t think you are.”

 


End file.
